


Finish It

by withyoutiltheendofthelime



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, First Kiss, Friendship, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7848922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withyoutiltheendofthelime/pseuds/withyoutiltheendofthelime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky triggers during a lazy night in with Steve & Natasha and while they're talking him down from his delusion he reveals the nature of his feelings for Steve. Warning for suicidal ideation, but it ends in fluff. I'm pretty sure this isn't Civil War compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finish It

An upside-down Natasha Romanova stretched her right leg toward the ceiling of the Avengers's den. She bounced the free-weight cupped in her foot slightly, shifting it around as she balanced first on her elbow, then her hand.

_Steve is in the sofa that has the reading lamp reading "Dreams from my Father"_ , she observed to herself mechanically, the other half of her practice session--total awareness of her surroundings. _Wint--Bucky, he's Bucky at home, Bucky is on the other sofa watching some police drama._

She reversed her feet's position in the air, catching the weight with her left foot on its ascent. _Someone on the TV show is frantically trying to hide something as one of the leads breaks down her door. She has blonde hair but it doesn't look natural. Unknown if on purpose from show creator or unconvincing dye job from studio._

This was all trivial bullshit but that's how you get to be the kind of spy who can take down a handful of adversaries singlehandedly without superpowers.

Who knows, maybe it _was_ a superpower. Along with her other mortal qualifications like always having an answer for Clint.

_Steve is out of popcorn, but he's so into the president's book that he hasn't noticed and he keeps digging around in the unpopped kernels for more without looking. His grey track pants match Obama's shirt on the book cover._

Bucky gasped.

Natasha noticed three things, in that gasp: a drastic closeup of a syringe on the TV screen, that Steve's eyes finally emerged from behind his book, and that Bucky--nope, she was pretty sure this time he _was_ the Winter Soldier, the original model and not the Avenger--had jumped to his feet and was now standing at attention with his hands behind his back.

Natasha flipped to right herself and examined him with careful eyes. Steve sprang up, the popcorn bowl knocked to the floor, but she held out one hand and he froze where he stood. They had discussed this.

"Bucky?" Natasha tried in a low voice.

"Ready to comply," Bucky said in Russian.

_Fuck_ , thought Natasha in a host of languages. On the other side of the room she smelled a change in Rogers' sweat. Hyperaware. Spy. Survive. "You're safe," she replied, also in Russian. "You're at home."

Bucky blinked. "Yes."

"Can you switch to English?" said Natasha in English.

"English," Bucky repeated. He turned to look at her, then at Steve. His movements were restrained, all except for his breathing--unnaturally heavy. Maybe this time wouldn't be so bad.

"You're at home, Bucky, and you're safe." She moved no closer toward him, but just in case, she was warmed up and ready in case she and Steve wound up fighting him until he came back to reality. "Do you know who we are?"

"You're my..." Bucky's eyes flickered back to Steve for a moment. To Natasha he continued, "You're my handler. He's my... husband? This is my home."

Natasha's superspy reflexes choked back what would have been a sad smile. In some senses yes, even the ridiculous parts of that were true. She was the closest thing he had to a handler now, since she was the one who could talk him down from.... from la la land.

But the Steve thing. Wow. Maybe in Steve's wistful daydreams, Steve who was at the moment ruined for all the other good little boys, girls, and others of the world thanks to the Bucky-shaped hole punched in his heart. So, yes, she knew about Steve's feelings, not just because it was her job to know things but because they had become family. But she also knew that Steve figured he'd know by now if Bucky was interested, and was too afraid to scare him off back into anonymity to make sure.

"Why?" she asked carefully.

"His body language. He's more casual than you are." Bucky's tone was that of an unemotional report. "Also, if the simulation intended you as my wife and him the handler, he would have been the one who spoke to me, and you'd be the one with the book."

"Simulation?" Steve murmured. Natasha shot him a look as she nodded imperceptibly. This was gonna be tricky, since Bucky's reflexes were honed on the same stone that had ground her so fine.

"You're in a simulation?" Natasha studied Bucky as she asked. _He_ was the simulation as he stood there motionless, the bits of his dark hair that had escaped from his short ponytail splashing over his cheeks in a disarray that belied his military posture; a simulation of a man. This was not a man; this was a vessel that had _trapped_ a man.

"I am in a simulation intended to test my fitness for duty. You wish to test my observation and judgment of an unfamiliar environment."

Steve licked his lips, and the sound drew Bucky's attention. "Husband simulation resembles..." Bucky's voice was scratchy now. "Husband simulation is based on Captain Steven Rogers, eliminated in America in fulfillment of my last mission. My mission... mish." His breathing grew heavier and his body softened, but it didn't look like a healthy softening--more like one of those time lapse movies of fruit rotting in a dish. He fell to his knees. "Steve! I killed Steve, and you _knew_ , and you made me do it anyway, and that's why you put him in the simulation." He glared at Natasha. "You wanted me to know you knew. Fuck. I killed Steve--"

"I'm _right here_ ," said Steve, breaking free of Natasha's instructions. He'd always been a champ at ignoring literally everything anyone ever told him to do if it had to do with Bucky. He rushed over to crouch in front of him. "Look at me."

"JARVIS, lock the front door of the suite to anyone but me or Captain Rogers," Natasha murmured. Keep this contained, keep people like Clint or Tony who would only complicate things out--for now.

" _He was alive_ ," Bucky insisted, refusing to bring his head up to meet Steve's eyes. "You're gonna have to fry my brains a little harder to fool me with this shit." He shoved Steve, and a lesser man would have stumbled backward. "He survived the same way I did. The Army probably put him away just like you put me away when you're finished jerking my puppet strings. He was alive, and you knew, and now you think you can put me away with this fake dream and make it all okay. But _I remember_." The words tumbled out the way groceries fall out of a paper bag when the bottom gives out, but with no end to them. "I remember his face, his stupid perfect goodness. He said he wouldn't fight me."

"Bucky, I swear to you on my mother's grave I'm really me." Steve tried to take Bucky's right hand, the one that wasn't metal, and move it towards his own chest but instead Bucky raked a clenched fistful of claws across Steve's face. "Ow."

"You let me kill him!" Bucky raged, on his feet and racing into the kitchen.

"Cutlery," Steve snapped, at the same time Natasha murmured "On it."

There weren't any knives sharp enough to do anything, but any one of the three of them could take down a football team with a fork singlehandedly, if desperate enough. Bucky seemed plenty desperate. Giving no heed to the mess he was making he pawed through the kitchen drawers, leaving them open as he went and flinging oddities like a shrimp peeler and a basting brush through the air like an angry juggler at a culinary show.

Steve and Natasha scrambled into the kitchen and tried to pin Bucky, but he'd found, somehow, a fucking steak knife. Natasha's mouth dropped open. "Who left that--?"

"Probably someone who was in here hanging out who doesn't see combat," said Steve wearily. He eyed Natasha, hoping for nonverbal communication about how they were going to take Bucky down safely, but Bucky didn't seem to need... taking down.

Instead, he was shoving the knife toward Steve -- handle first. "Just get it over with," he grumbled bitterly.

"Take the knife," Natasha commanded. Then Steve saw her mouth the word _DISTRACT_ at him, and then she mimed putting a pill in her mouth. She wanted Steve to occupy Bucky so she could get his antipsychotics.

Bucky pressed the knife handle into Steve's palm and then let Natasha hold both hands behind his back. "Back to the den," she said, which Steve knew was a way to get him away from the mess he'd made in the kitchen, back to all the soft surfaces like carpeting and sofas and cushions.

"Take him," said Natasha.

Steve couldn't hold both Bucky's wrists at once without putting the knife down, but he didn't want Bucky to try to get the knife back. That could get awful pretty quickly, especially if he decided the "Steve simulation" was taking too long to kill him. So he ordered him, "Close your eyes."

Bucky obeyed instantly, and Steve handed Natasha the knife. She darted noiselessly out of the room with it.

Steve held Bucky's wrists behind his back but it was all he could do not to massage his hands soothingly, to tell him he was alive, they were both alive and free and safe and unfrozen. The last time Bucky had an episode all Steve had to do was rub his flesh shoulder for about forty-five minutes talking to him in a low voice about their teenage adventures together. This was a world away from that.

Bucky tipped his head back, and Steve thought he was trying to get a look at him. No, his eyes were still closed. "I'm right here, Buck, I've got you." Steve squeezed his grip on Bucky's wrists for a moment in case it was reassuring.

" _Finish it_ ," Bucky hissed, and Steve recognized his own words from the helicarrier.

"Bucky, why did you--why did the simulation make me your husband instead of just your friend?" Steve stalled. The timing was terrible but he also didn't think he'd be able to ask Bucky about this once he snapped out of it, in case it made him relapse and placed him back in the fantasy.

"You all already know all that." Bucky sounded deflated, defeated. "At least let me kiss him before he kills me, if you're going to keep up this bullshit. Steve. He always did the right thing."

Steve faced him on the floor, emotions tearing him into distorted ribbons. The right thing now was to wait for Nat. The right thing was also to soothe Bucky in the meantime.

"KILL ME!" Bucky screamed.

Steve stopped waiting. He pressed a chaste, almost sanctifying kiss to the corner of Bucky's mouth, then craned his head downward. Sticking out his tongue to a point, he painted a line across Bucky's throat, along the path Bucky had intended for the knife.

As if Steve's tongue had genuinely sliced him dead, Bucky collapsed against the sofa, catatonic. His eyes were still closed. Steve watched him intently and was relieved to see that he was breathing.

Natasha appeared with the pill in one hand, bottle in the other. "Sorry. Someone moved it."

"I'll get water." Steve stood, aching all over even though he'd hardly done anything. He felt like with that kiss-that-wasn't he'd taken on the weight of Bucky's pain.

Natasha placed the pill between Bucky's motionless lips and Steve tipped a bottle of water towards him to wash it down. Within a few minutes he opened his eyes. "Steve?" He turned his head. "Nat?"

"Where are we?" Natasha tested.

"Manhattan.... I think." He looked around him. "Stark tower. Avengers tower. Whatever. Tony's dollhouse."

"Who am I?" Steve blurted out.

"Cole Porter," Bucky quipped. "And she's Grace Kelley. Steve, what happened? Did I hurt anyone?"

"No," said Steve at the same time Natasha said "Not exactly." Each of them took a hand; Steve's the flesh, Natasha on metal. Steve did comforting things with his thumb.

Bucky looked back and forth between Steve and Natasha. "What aren't you telling me?"

"You were suicidal, Buck." Steve watched him carefully, hoping that wasn't the wrong thing to say.

Bucky let out a heavy breath. "What did I do?"

"Someone left a knife in the kitchen and you--"

"Jesus." Bucky ran his hand through his unkempt hair and then redid his ponytail. "Did I--?"

"You gave it to us," said Natasha. "It's fine now. It's gone."

"Swear to me I didn't hurt you," Bucky growled aggressively, clenching each of their hands.

"You're hurting me _now_ ," Natasha reminded him. "The bionic hand's on my side."

"Sorry." Bucky released her hand and clenched it to his chest. He tried to withdraw from Steve, too, into himself, but Steve kept making calming motions on Bucky's right hand anyway.

"You don't remember anything?" asked Natasha.

"Doesn't sound like I would want to." Bucky grimaced.

"Probably not," Steve agreed.

"I'm thirsty." Steve pressed the bottle of water into Bucky's hand and Bucky gulped half its contents one swift motion. He wiped his mouth with his wrist. "Look, I just wanna feel normal right now. Can we put the TV back on?"

Natasha swallowed. "You triggered from seeing a--we know what triggered you, and if we turn it back on it has to be something that won't have that."

"Nature shows?" Steve suggested.

They ended up watching a program on Bronze Age archaeology in Scotland, the last place on earth Natasha would expect to see any more close-ups of syringes. The three of them never even made it up onto the sofa; they just sat clustered together on the floor like a basketful of puppies, leaning against the sofa's seat for a back.

"You two okay if I go to bed?" Natasha asked as she stood up and stretched after the show was over. "I was in a fistfight one morning in the Czech countryside and my adversary told me if I didn't quit fighting like that I'd never get to fall asleep in bed the middle of reading novels like other women. It adds years to my life every time I get to prove him wrong."

"I'm fine," said Bucky. "Thanks. Glad you two are looking out for me."

They heard the door to her bedroom click closed.

"Well, I'm 96, so I'm moving to the sofa now," Steve quipped. Bucky flashed him a sarcastic smile he was scared earlier that evening that he'd never see again and scooted up beside him.

"Least we're not as old as that buckle they found in the peat bog," Bucky pointed out. "What?"

"What, what?"

"You're looking at me like." Bucky stopped. "What'd I say, when I was under?"

"What do you mean?"

"You usually look scared and worn out when I flashback."

"I don't look scared and worn out?" Steve _felt_ scared and worn out.

"No, you look like you're waiting for me to ask to see you home from church."

"Church? I don't underst--"

"Church, the bar, whatever. What did I say?" Bucky demanded. "Wait, what did I _do_?"

"I want to tell you but I'm afraid it'll make you relapse."

"Oh." Bucky blinked. "Then I... I think I know what I said."

Steve took a deep breath. "Yeah. Buck, why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"Oh, I don't know, because I beat the shit out of you and let you fall hundreds of feet to certain death?"

"You weren't yourself. And you fished me out."

"How am I ever going to be okay with what I did?"

"You don't have to be okay with it. But you do need to believe that it was something that was done _to_ you." Steve held up the water bottle. "Can I?" Bucky nodded, and Steve took a swig. "HYDRA hurt both of us. They just hurt you in a weirder way than anything they ever did to me."

Bucky looked at his metal limb. "There's no coming back from something like this arm," he pointed out.

"You're not coming back," said Steve, taking the metal hand in both of his. "You're going forward--we both are, me and you, including your left arm. I'm not worried about whoever you used to be back when I was skinny and you didn't set off a metal detector and neither one of us had nightmares." Steve, the king of laying himself bare, kept going. "I love the you that's here now. I'm flawed too."

"Sure, you probably forgot to put the top on the toothpaste this morning," said Bucky. "Did you not notice that you are _literally Captain America_?"

"Does that mean you can't be Captain America's cranky cyborg boyfriend?" Steve asked gently. Coming from anyone else it would have been snark, but he was so goddamn _deadly earnest._

Bucky reddened, then cracked that nowadays-rare smile of his that sent flickers of heat through Steve's veins. "How am I supposed to resist something that fucking sweet? Aw, hell. C'mere." He pulled Steve in for a kiss, doing nothing by halves.

Feeling stubble during a kiss was new, and neat, and fun. Steve had kissed a few girls, and more girls than that had kissed _him_ first, but he hadn't gotten around to any other genders yet. Waking up in a time where Peggy had outgrown him was disorienting enough.

Bucky pulled Steve on top of him against the back of the sofa. "I like feeling the weight of you," he growled at him. "Then I can really believe you're alive."

"I promise I'm alive," Steve kissed into his jawline. "I ate an entire bag of popcorn."

"I know, I can taste it. Heh," Bucky chuckled deeply. "Figures that Captain America tastes like fucking popcorn."

"Could be worse," Steve reminded him. "Ballpark bubble gum?" He shifted against Bucky, their bodies sliding together. Teeshirts and track pants were so very flimsy. "I love you, Bucky. Please show me how I can make you feel loved."

"Hold me down and kiss me," was the gruff response.

"Hold you down." Steve was slightly confused.

"That's how I'll feel safe."

Steve's brain clicked. "Because then you won't hurt me."

Gently, Steve pushed Bucky down to the sofa cushions and straddled him like exercise equipment, his wrists pinned beneath Steve's thighs. He lowered himself down to Bucky's mouth, where they kissed until Bucky fell asleep from his meds.

_If this were anyone other than another supersoldier_ , Steve thought to himself, _I could carry him to bed. Oh, well!_ He bedded down on the other sofa for the night, not wanting to leave Bucky by himself in the den.

That was how Natasha found them in the morning. "JARVIS, release lock. Everything okay out here?"

"We're good," called Steve with a throw pillow over his face.

"We're dating," called Bucky from under the other throw pillow.

_Well, I guess that answered the question of whether he was just going along with it because of the medication,_ thought Steve as he stretched himself awake, the sunlight pouring in from the window mirroring the warmth in his heart.


End file.
